It’s been one of those days for me. Great customer service x3.
1. Cars in the garage – air con is broke. I phoned on Monday and they said bring it in anytime. How does Wednesday morning sound? No problem sir. Cool – I’ll drop it off around 7:00 if thats ok. Sure – someone will be here to take your keys. Excellent.
Roll on to today. By 12 I hadn’t heard from the garage. I phoned their new service department number – unobtainable. Strange – used that number on Monday. Turns out that from any mobile network the number doesn’t work. Tried from my work phone – after 2 mins of no-one picking up I put the phone down. Tried the number another couple of times but no answer. No other phone number on their website but Yell had another number. This got answered and I was transferred through to the service department. After a couple of minutes of no answer I gave up.
Tried 4 or 5 times before eventually getting through to service department at 14:00. Cars getting looked at right now. Ok, they’ll phone back soon. Roll on to 16:30. Still heard nothing and struggling again to get in touch with them. Got hold off them around 16:40…yes sir, we’re looking at the car just now. We’ll be able to give you an update in 20 mins. AGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I complained, moaned but I got the excuse it must have been the wrong car earlier and they apologized. 30 mins later and I get the call – they might be able to fix it tomorrow, it may cost around £300 but it could be less, could be more. Rest assured however, we’ll keep you informed at all times. Yeah – right.
2. 15:55 – trying to arrange a server update this Friday at work. However our outsourced IT service can’t do it as they need 72 hours notice to do an upgrade on a production server. OK, agreed….but it’s an important upgrade, it’s the holiday weekend and I’m upgrading software at another site and the versions need to be at the same level. Sorry – nothing we can do. Grrrrr. Ok – when can you do it. 16:00 on Tuesday. Then I find out that there’s already an outage on Friday on the same server. Splendid – lets do the upgrade. No can do – it’s a different line of service and hence needs 72 hours from today. What? Why? No good reason – it’s the rules. I then point out they’ve no approval from me to do Fridays outage yet. True, but thats not a problem is it?
While I ignore that I turn to the other project manager and said – OK – lets do Tuesday at 16:00. Sorry, need to be 16:30 now as it’s now gone 16:10 and thats less than 72 hours from 16:00 on Tuesday. I point out that it’s far more than 72 hours, it’s a holiday etc and even is he wants to do crazy maths it is only 10 mins under 72 hours. No matter if it’s one minute or ten, it needs to be over 72 hours. What a jobsworth! What a wanker! So tempted to block Friday now just to show how annoying it is when people follow the rules but that would be really petty. Tempting, tempting.
3. NTL Virgin media phoned tonight to review my current package and ‘see what they can do for me’. You pay £37 currently for broadband but you’ll receive an upgrade to 20Meg before the end of May. Nice, I asked if that was guaranteed as the website doesn’t even list Glasgow for upgrading yet. Yes it is guaranteed, website doesn’t show any info yet. I point out it does but I’m told I’m looking at the wrong site. See the trend yet?
Anyway sir – move your telephone service to Virgin for £1.99 and you’ll save lots over BT. Agreed, but I won’t be moving I said. You can save money sir? I know, but I won’t be moving. There was a pause….do you like giving away money. I asked if he was deliberately insulting me and trying to wind me up? No – only trying to save money. Fine then, cut my broadband bill then if you want to improve ‘my package’. No can do I’m afraid – what about TV. I’ll give you digital TV for free. I don’t want it – it’s rubbish. I was then told it was the best and most varied service on the market….and it was free. Cool – so I can record with it. No – that costs £15 a month. Uggghhh. What about HD. Yes sir – we have the best product on the market. I laughed out loud at that one. I pointed out he was blatantly lying at this point, asked if I could get Sky Sports HD and got met with an mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Don’t bother mate, you’ve pissing in the wind and I’m finishing this call. Click.
Salesmen, liars and jobsworths. What a combination.
Mate, I feel your pain. Was looking at my internet banking the other day – noticed a credit for £150 with some vague bank transfer code on it. Mmm… Spins back two weeks and see that the exact same amount went out – my new standing order to my HSBC credit card. Started getting a bad feeling. Called BOS Telebanking – nothing to do with us Sir, but looks like that payment has been rejected. Mmm. By chance my monthly statement comes through from HSBC – card suspended, £12 missed payment charge etc. WTF! Calls HSBC and they deny all knowledge of the payment – so I quote the tranfer code back to them, the one that credited me £150. Long pause. Nothing to do with us. Bring in ID, your statements and payment into your local HSBC and we’ll credit your account with the £12. Fair do’s. HSBC have a very tactile approach to banking, so next day I sit and have a coffee. Waiting patiently for the Branch Manager. Eventually we chat for a while and then she allocates a customer services dear – so we go through it all again. What you doing at the weekend she says? At this point I’m doing my best David Banner impersonation (quelling the rage within). Chitty chat is all well and good – but I’d been in there for friggin ages and it was a gorgeous lovely lunchtime I was missing. So, best part of an hour later I walk back into the office and my phone rings. Haven’t even got my jacket off. Its some 008 number, weird. Mr Evans? Is your address such and such? Yes. This is Card Services, I see you’ve missed a payment on your HSBC card? No I haven’t. Your timing couldn’t have been better as I have just had a very long discussion with the Glasgow Branch Manager of HSBC regarding why you rejected my payment three weeks ago. Ok… she says. Well your still behind with your payment and your card is suspended. No its not I said. I just made a cash payment from your cash machines – back into the Branch, not twenty minutes ago. Well could I just go over those details again, you’ve paid such and such. Clearly reading off a script and not actually listening to me, I said, look love, I’ve got work to do – thanks for phoning and hung up.